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We can agree that Mike D'Antoni has a way more talented roster right now than he did during his heyday with the Suns, right?

Yeah, he had better roleplayers in Phoenix such as Barbosa and Raja Bell, but in NY he has a second superstar in Carmelo and we all know that the NBA is a superstar's league so the second superstar is far more valuable than a team of mediocre roleplayers who couldn't contain Tony Parker.

If Mike D'Antoni could score the living hell out of any opponent during his Phoenix days, and he has a more talented roster, where are the results? During the D'Antoni Phoenix days we saw Steve Nash make a fool out of everyone in the Western conference by constantly abusing the pick and roll with Amar'e and hitting his outside shots.

Now we have quite possibly the most versatile scorer in the league who is an underrated passer and more athletic than Nash could ever hope to be, not to mention stronger, and...we can't run the pick and roll? Is D'Antoni's philosophy really going to be sitting around and deciding either to chuck 3's or to give the ball to a superstar in isolation? Is that the best he's got?

Cause that's not going to win us ****. It's not. Simply put when we go up against the likes of Mike Brown, Tom Thibodeau, Erik Spoelstra, Gregg Popovich, and so on, simply saying "Hey Melo shoot a face up jumper when you get the ball" is not going to cut it. And this was against the Warriors without their best player.

I understand there are going to be growing pains. I get it. The Knicks' attempts to run the Felton-Amar'e pick and roll were awful and at times it looked as if Felton had no idea what was going on. But they worked on it, got better at it, and eventually seemed to get some chemistry down that was only ruined by Felton's terrible shot selection. We need to do something more if this team is going to go anywhere. Simply giving the ball to Melo and asking him to score 35+ points isn't going to work every night. The luxury of having a player like that is the fact that it COULD work on some nights, but it didn't work tonight.

Last of all where's the rebounding? Sixth graders who don't box out have to sit on the bench, where the hell was the boxing out? Where was the offensive rebounding? We grabbed 4 offensive rebounds and one was by Jerome Jordan in garbage time, we got outrebounded by sixteen and were unable to do anything. We have one of the game's best rebounding and defending centers, we have an athletic PF who can grab a decent share of boards, and we have a top SF in basketball. There's no excuse for letting Kwame Brown grab 10 boards in 11 minutes. That's just sad.

Yes, it's early in the season. Yes, it's just one game. But if this team plays like this against any decent team, there's going to be no playoffs for us. Get past the first round? Maybe at a pro-am if these guys can golf.

So once again, our cap space is eaten up for the next 4-5 years and our roster is stacked with good, but also very expensive players that won't win us a championship.

I don't know what to make out of this situation, on the one hand it's cool to have superstars and hype here and I'm somewhat proud Melo is a Knick, on the other hand I feel very sad, because we've ruined our cap for years to come with no chance of winning a championship.

It's no coincedence that D'Antoni, STAT and Melo have never made it out of the Western Conference Finals...they're just no champions I'm afraid, but Dolan is not interested.

I meant that some issues we see aren't because of the personnel (or lack there of) like some have theorized.

We got better players throughout the years, yet we still see some of the same things which I account as a byproduct of MOA's system and philosophy.

An example is rebounding. Some argued that we were out rebounded due to lack of personnel (in the past). I intimated it was a result of chucking too many long shots, combined with too many players around the perimeter, thus resulting in poor positioning for boxing out and rebounding. Now we see what I was saying.

This system lacks fundamentals like player position when shots go up. It is predicated on "making" shots, but does not contain contingencies when we are missing, thus we can't take advantage of put backs like in other systems.

The total approach does not allow for mistakes or unforseen circumstances- there's one way to win, and many ways to lose.

We blew a 17pt lead in game 1 (with better players) just like we use to blow leads before. Only difference is we added a better shooter in Melo that can possibly bring us back.

Damn guys I fell asleep after the 1st half wtf happened???? I kind of didn't even want to watch anymore and just knocked out. I mean we were winning by 2points before I fell asleep but our offense was just HORRIBLE. Carmelo just looked absolutely LOST. Seriously, it looked like he was high out of his mind during the whole game. From the beginning when he just let Wright walk right past him while Melo was just in la la land (no pun intended), I knew he was out of it. As for STAT, I hate to say it but he's a ballhog. He doesn't make anyone on his team better, neither does Melo but at least he tries sometimes. Every time we pass STAT the ball he just launches a mid-range jumper, oh and now he shoots 3's too... great.... The difference between Melo/STAT and Lebron/Wade is that Lebron/Wade actually get everyone on their team involved instead of just turning it into 1 on 1 basketball every time they get the ball. Our offense is worse than our defense right now, we really need to start running some P&R or something! Anything!

Originally Posted by SSj4Wingzero

all they did was pass the ball around and then wait for one guy brave enough to get a missed FG so they could turn the ball over to the other team for an open shot.

That's IT. That's ALL THEY DID today.

Omfg co-sign that **it. That's exactly how I feel about our offense, especially Fields, that dude is always just so reluctant to shoot like he scared to miss or something. I wish I could give you rep but it says I have to spread some around first.

As long as we don't get production from the starting PG position, expect this to be a ongoing thing.

Amare won't be consistently productive if he continues with this "stretch 4" nonsense

I honestly think Melo will be fine and therefore not worried about him.

Chandler is effective when opposing defenses have to constantly adjust, thus allowing him to hustle for loose balls and get offensive rebounds. This won't happen with heavy iso play on offense (wake up MOA!)

Fields is forced to do too much creating off the dribble. That's not his game... he moves well without the ball and just needs passes to put him in position to either shoot or drive to the basket.

Bibby is okay for a backup. He plays a better (overall smarter) pg game than TD and is not afraid to hit the paint.

DOUGLAS has brought this team down, period! If he's not shooting the ball he's useless. We're seeing the same things that happened in the playoffs when our offense became very stagnant and predictable once CB got hurt. MOA does not have an extension past this year, so I hope he realizes that TD is not the guy he wants to go to war with right now.

Dantoni needed 3 qtrs to realize TD couldn't get this offense going. I would have went with all 3 PGs after the half until someone started producing. I know Lin just got here but its not like we were running any special plays so he could have come in the game and maybe helped. Same thing with Jordan... MOA decided that he was only worthy of garbage minutes even though our starting center was in constant foul trouble. We were getting our ass kicked on the boards and you don't get your 7 footer up off the bench until late in the 4th????

I know we'll make the playoffs but its mind boggling decisions from MOA that will keep us from advancing further. I'm sure Woodson is on the bech rolling over in his grave (Barkley voice).

Man, thought things weren't this bad, but we just lost to Golden State. Then we get Jeremy Lin. Your kidding, right? We aren't going anywhere this year if Baron Davis doesn't come back quickly 100%....